Oath in a normal weapon

I was thinking of making an Oath runeword in a 4-socket Colossus Sword I found (non-superior, non-ethereal). At first I was disappointed that it wasn't ethereal, but I looked at the stats of the level 16 Heart of Wolverine, and wondered if I couldn't simply make up the lost damage using the repairable charges.

Can the spirit be relied upon to survive a reasonable amount of time in Hell? How expensive are the repair costs for each charge?

Spirits die frequently, as I learned from my fury druid. Basiclly every bosspack will kill it, if not some random monster; and after some time I just got sick of casting it again and again. So... I don't think it's worth putting Oath in non-eth just because of those charges.

Edit: just to make it clear, the dying spirit i talk about is level 15, not 1 or so

and wondered if I couldn't simply make up the lost damage using the repairable charges.

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If you aren't sure, just do tha calculations :3 Let's say, there's a frenzy barbarian wearing arreat's face, highlord's wrath and 2 combat skillers. About level 60, so we have maxed frenzy, 10 hard points in taunt and double swing, and one point in sword mastery. With ~180 str needed for colossus sword, we'll have:

In this example, etherial one is clearly superior, and the difference will be growing with additional sources of ed% like Might aura from mercenary, Fortitude armour or additional points into weapon mastery.
So... just insert your numbers here and I'm sure the result will be the same.

I was thinking of making an Oath runeword in a 4-socket Colossus Sword I found (non-superior, non-ethereal). At first I was disappointed that it wasn't ethereal, but I looked at the stats of the level 16 Heart of Wolverine, and wondered if I couldn't simply make up the lost damage using the repairable charges.

Can the spirit be relied upon to survive a reasonable amount of time in Hell? How expensive are the repair costs for each charge?

Click to expand...

As you are going to invest a Mal and Pul rune, I would rather get an ethereal two-hander which will get 4 sockets from Larzuk, like a highland blade, balrog blade or champion sword (not a legend sword, it gets just 3 sockets). If ethereal, they are all better than a noneth colossus sword and more speedy as well when using another attack than WW. That includes Heart of Wolverine not being available. You don't need its AR bonus (which might be a different case in PvP, however) and its 125% ed off-weapon will add to the bonuses from strength, aura, attack skill etc. any, so it may increase from e.g. 800% to 925%. In contrast, 1.5-fold weapon damage would be like a 450% off-weapon bonus in the 800% scenario.